An incredible night last night

[EA2007]

Hey kids,

I would ideally like to say that I spent the night with Myleene Klass or Holly Willoughby.....but unfortunatly I had to settle for second best so I went observing instead!

Last night was crispy clear and although in a village location the skies above were very clear with a great view of the milky way running through cygnus etc.

So, after weeks of cloud and lazy-itis I got my 8" dob. out and took it for a spin. With clear views across the board I decided to go for Bode's Nebula and the Cigar and was lucky to find their smaller companion NGC 3077 first, then from this I got to M81 & 82. The trouble is they looked quite faded, probably due to them being in the west (which was a bit light after sunset), so my attention turned to something a little brighter......

Hercules was up next and I had an idea! Being a glasses wearer its quite annoying having to constantly take them off to view through the eyepiece or viewfinder and trying to locate an object whilst combining normal vision with the viewfinder is agonising, so I thought, how about I leave my glasses on and aim my laser pointer through the viewfinder, that way I know the scope will be turned to roughly where I want it........and it worked!

Aimed at M13 and M92 respectivly and both were in a few movements of the scope tube. But, looking through the finderscope I realised it was slightly mis-aligned, so I re-aligned any wahey, when it came to the dumbell nebula (m27) I was smack bang on it and the same went for the ring nebula (m57). Fancying a look at the old favourite (M31) I spun the scope eastward and with the pointer was smack bang on it again.

So, todays lesson is "If you wear glasses and get annoyed taking them off to look through a viewfinder, use a laser pointer!"

By the way, all the objects looked very good indeed, unfortunatly the sky tonight is slightly cloudy....grrrr.

[thing]

Sounds like you had a great night! I was struck by how clear it was last night too. It's bad for LP here but even nebs like M27 and 57 showed up beautifully.

[EA2007]

Yeh, I was quite suprised, I think there wasn't very much high cloud as usually this messe things up, but last night the MW was really clear, probably the best I have seen it from this location.

[Astronut]

I can only just make out the Milky Way from my backyard - just the faintest hint of it

The view at Salisbury SP last weekend showed just how bad my local LP is. What wouldn't I give to live in a remote mountain shack?

I wear glasses too and have the same frustrations as you - taking them off and putting them back on again to re-aim is something you get used to but I'd rather not have to do it. I refuse to wear contacts though.

[stefski]

Crikey guys, do you live in UK??????I've forgotten what a star looks like here in south beds!!!

[EA2007]

Ha ha, yes. North Yorkshire for me....its quite good apart from the glow of Teesside when its a bit hazy.

[saturn5]

Hopefully the first of many good nights observing

I was clouded out so it was Myleene Klass for me. :sex: Yeah right

[EA2007]

Holly for me.....mmm.

Yeh, well I have just decided to EQ my dob, although its proving a bit tricky